The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

Looking back

Every man and his dog is writing this week about Imola. I doubt that I need to remind anyone that Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger died there 20 years ago this week. I am not about to follow suit on this blog. I have written a few reminiscences elsewhere but there is such a feeding frenzy that I feel the need to keep out of it. All that I really want to say is that it was the worst weekend of my racing career and I hope, sincerely, that I do not have to live through anything like it again. It is amazing to me that we have gone 20 years since the last driver died in F1, but I guess that before that weekend we had gone 12 years without a fatality at a race meeting and looking back the cars they were using between 1982 and 1994 were pretty unsafe compared to today. At the time we did not think of it that way. Twelve years without a fatality was in itself an extraordinary achievement. Having said that, three weeks before the Imola weekend I wrote a column that is almost frightening when one looks back. It was after the Brazilian Grand Prix, held that year at the start of the season, during which Eddie Irvine received a three-race ban for causing an accident which very nearly killed Martin Brundle, the Englishman’s helmet having been grazed by a wheel.

“I believe that F1 people no longer treat death with the respect it deserves. No-one has been killed driving in a Grand Prix since 1982 – 12 years. This is testament to the wonderful safety of today’s machinery, but it means that there is complacency. People think you can survive anything. And if you look back five years there have been some pretty impressive escapes: Gerhard Berger survived his huge shunt and fire at Imola in 1989; Martin Donnelly survived his car falling apart at Jerez in 1990; Christian Fittipaldi survived flipping at top speed at Monza last year and Alessandro Zanardi escaped a high-speed head-on into the wall at Spa. And so it goes on. Everyone survives.

“F1 folk complain that cars are being slowed down too much; that race tracks are boring because all the challenging corners have been changed for safety reasons, but the changes are probably worth it.

“I will always remember talking to the late Denny Hulme on the subject of safety.

‘We didn’t know any better in the old days,’ said Denny. ‘Now we’ve got the most incredibly hygenic circuits you have ever seen. Some people criticise them. They say it’s terribly boring motor racing. Yes, compared to the old Nurburgring it is, but it’s better than going to a funeral every Tuesday morning.’

“The younger generations of drivers – the men racing in F1 today – have grown up in relatively safe racing and their respect for the dangers is not the same as their predecessors. They have not been to any Tuesday funerals.

“As far as I am concerned Irvine’s attitude after the accident was wrong from the start. He was too busy protesting that it was not his fault that he overlooked the fact that his move – for whatever reason he did it – had nearly killed someone. He may have had a point when he said he it was ‘a racing accident’ and maybe he deserved the benefit of the doubt, but he didn’t seem shaken by his near-miss or anxious that Brundle was OK.

“Drivers say that the press and officials don’t knowing what they are talking about and cannot judge how drivers should react in a split-second at 180mph. In some ways this is a valid point, but young cocky drivers should also remember that observers have long memories. Most racing drivers consider that motor racing history began when they first sat in a racing car. I think that if they knew about the past they could learn from it.”

I think much of what is written remains valid. The safety of modern F1 cars is amazing but that does not mean that there will never be another fatal accident in F1. And we should not be complacent about it.

I think the important fact is that she died as a result of injuries sustained whilst driving a modern F1 car, subject to the same safety standards as those with full-time F1 drivers inside. So it’s not relevant if she was an F1 driver, only that she was driving F1 machinery.

For one, the loading ramp on the truck being down and exactly at head lvl would have had a lot to do with it being even able to happen the way it happened (and we are sure not to get that during any official running, esp. after the incident). And its likely she did make a mistake and caused the crash.

Whether you define her as “an F1 driver” is nothing more than semantics. For what it’s worth, Valentino Rossi has driven an F1 car but I don’t think I’d class him as “an F1 driver”. Neither have ever had a race drive and I would interpret that as the criterion really. To each their own.

As for De Villota’s accident, there’s a fair case to be made that such an incident would and could never occur in an official F1 session, although odd occurrences like the Korean GP fire marshalls’ car pops into mind as a potential near miss.

Much more likely will be the sort of accident that killed Henry Surtees in July 2009 and Massa’s accident in Hungary.

Speaking of which, Joe, has any movement been seen on the research into front roll hoops and canopies and the like? Nothing new seems to have been said since 2012, though a BBC piece at that time (by Benson) cites Paddy Lowe expecting something for 2014.

Sorry to disagree, but she died from a trauma in her brain caused by the accident. That she died several months later is not any different from somebody who get burned in an accident but still survives for a couple of weeks in the hospital before dying. Or if God´s forbid Michael never wake up, he didnt get killed in the mountain, but in a hospital.
Maria sustained lethal wounds in her accident, although she was able to survive for some moths after the accident, but lets not be hypocrite. Last year a F1 test driver died because her job, so the count down should not be in 20 years without lethal accidents

Whatever Joe’s personal feelings are, I would say that you are correct, as in her death was directly related to the testing activity in the F1 car, even though as you also say, she died some months later. Her death in that respect, is no different to that of the much missed Elio de Angelis, who also died as a result of an accident at testing….there’s really no difference…testing…F1 car….death….all aspects are aligned the same.

She drove into the tail-lift of a transporter. That wouldn’t happen at a GP track. The only reason she was in that car was to get some publicity for the team. They succeeded, but i’m guessing not in the way they wanted…

Thank you Joe for the comments , I to was there working with Roland .. the weekend was indeed something that a good many mechanics do not want or need to be reminded of.. some of those guys still working in F1 . But dispite the violence of that weekend ..its still a fantastic sport that i am pround to still be a part of .

Me too. I can remember it *SO* vividly. Can remember looking across at dad in the lounge at home, waiting for Ayrton to climb out of the car, we didn’t know what to say or think. I think that was my first experience of death, albeit not family, but it still had a big impact on me.
My dad and I went to a BTCC meeting at Snetterton the following day and the atmosphere was tense and palpable. The same feeling I recall watching the opening laps of the 1990 British GP, my first race, that atmosphere that you could cut with a knife.

Since back then Internet and chatting was a thing of the future my group of friend used to watch the races “on the line” because all of us had 3 way phone conferencing….I remember the silence…and the images and the waiting for him to climb out of the cockpit…a very sad moment, that still hurts a lot.

I was at Snetterton the day he died, I remember they confirmed it on the radio in the car on the way home with my Dad. We knew he’d had the accident while we were at the circuit, I can remember how the atmosphere changed. Quite an impact on the 8-year-old me. I feel privileged to have watched him race in person – the 1990 British Grand Prix was my first too, and I went for several years afterwards. He ran out of fuel pretty much right in front of where we were sat in 1991, so I saw Mansell giving him a lift. I need to dig out my Dad’s photos from then.

Well said Joe. I’ve avoided reading the articles or being tempted by “new video footage” from Imola, etc. Nice to hear Denny Hulme’s comments – another highly underrated driver who is not, I think, even known to many modern fans, but who clearly knew what he was talking about and was another of those truly decent sportsmen who graced F1 in the ’60s and ’70s

If you don’t remember Denny Hulme, it might be hard to understand the significance of his words (as quoted by Joe S). Denny won his world championship by beating Jack Brabham, who owned the team with Aussie mate Ron Tauranac. In the same year, 1967, Denny competed in Can-Am against his other team boss, Bruce McLaren. Those were very strange times because so many people racing in Europe had arrived from the opposite side of the world. Up and coming Chris Amon, starting a span at Ferrari, also came from New Zealand.

Jack and Denny and Ron were tough racers, realistic but not fatalistic. At a time when some designers built fragile cars, Tauranac went the other way, making cars that were simple and robust. And fast enough, most of the time. And I don’t recall Bruce McLaren or his immediate successors building fragile cars.

Winning or beating a team mate (who might be an employer/employee) was important to them, but so was staying alive and keeping the car in good shape. To win, you need to be racing next weekend.

An excellent discussion of a relevant topic; far better than what the “dogs” wrote.
That Eddie Irvine was being a d#ck about causing an accident that almost killed Martin Brundle; who would be surprised at that revelation.

He was a bit of a b@llbag then. He was a much mellower, and shaken, man seven years later when he sent Luciano Burti into the wall at Spa, pulling off bits of tyre wall with a look of numb fear on his face

Very well written Joe. While F1 continues to toot the safety horn on 20 years without a fatality, it ignores the trackside incidents of marshals (like in Canada a couple of years back). It will be very imprudent to state that today’s F1 is fatal injury proof.

Its amazing to watch some of the Imola footage and see marshalls standing out in the open on the track side and spectators hanging from the catch fencing,
At a glance you can see how much has changed with track safety because of those marshal tragedies (Melbourne, Monza, Canada)

I’ll never forget Ayrton’s crash – it’s one of those ‘landing on the moon’ moments that stays with you forever. I can only imagine how it must have been for you guys actually being there. In that respect I can only refer to the story Ian Harrison wrote recently on Autosport.com.

One thing though. I’m grateful to see that Roland Ratzenberger is also remembered often these days. Rightly so.

We have indeed been lucky although the cars are much safer and the circuits have in many cases much bigger run-off areas which don’t punish mistakes so much – which is a whole discussion you could have about the banzai attitude of some drivers (yes you Pastor and others on occasion) as a consequence

Massa and Alonso in particular could very easily have been fatal one if the spring had hit the helmet elsewhere – and Alonso at Spa could easily have been decapitated in that particular incident – and without full head protection on the cockpit sides there would be nothing that could have been done to prevent that one

Alonso at Spa – Grosjean received a ban for that. Why didn’t Maldonato in Bahrain receive the same treatment? Is his sponsorship money so important, that it makes the difference? Or am I being too sarcastic?

I rewatched Bahrain just the other day and I honestly didn’t think it was that bad a mistake. It looked dramatic of course, bits of carbon fibre everywhere, a wonderful on-board view that cuts out as the camera smashes into the tarmac, all good ratings-fodder.

But going back over and over again through the on-board footage from Gutierrez’s car, I couldn’t help noticing that he could see Maldonado exiting the pit-lane. He knew that a car was coming out of the pitlane and should have been aware that it could be close into that first corner.

And then he closed the door and took the racing line – legitimate of course, Gutierrez was ahead, he had the advantage and therefore had the corner, the following car must give way.

But the top guys know when to leave a bit of space, when slamming the door is just too dangerous, like, I don’t know, when someone is just leaving the pitlane with cold brakes and under-temperature tyres. Like Joe has often said before, the top drivers are very good at simply not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’d want to see more of the data, more of the readouts of braking points and whatnot, to really judge. But to me it looked like a small mistake that by chance ended up being much more dramatic than most incidents we normally see in F1.

A well written article by Joe, I didn’t see the race as it happened, but subsequent memories remain. The BBC didn’t show any highlights that evening, but I subsequently saw footage from Senna’s car up to moments before the impact.

What I also remember is Monza in September 1978 when Ronnie Petersen died despite the efforts of James Hunt to pull him from the blazing wreckage.

Whilst F1 may be much safer now, it would be wrong to say a fatal incident couldn’t happen today.

I watched the race live on BBC, I remember it so well. I remember where I was when they announced on the radio that he was dead. The one thing I remember most is the program they showed in place of the highlights, an I can still recount the words Murray Walker said as he introduced the piece.

Luckily Grosjean seemed to take his ban and opprobrium the best way and changed his driving – but I still see that wheel going over Alonso’s head and wonder how close we came to another tragedy.

I was only a kid when Aryton and Roland died but I still remember the news reports and I wouldn’t want to see that ever again. I think we can argue about the sanitizing of the tracks to an extent but I don’t think safety should be let slide with complacency. It’s still ridiculous that drivers have gotten more penalty ‘points’ for impeding or tyre failures than Pastors violent hit. I think we all agree drivers need to push things and race hard and accept a certain amount of risk – but that sort of thing should be a ban. It worked for Grosjean – maybe it will work on his new teammate.

The replays indicated that Gutierrez’s car was thrown into the air because of the wheel to wheel contact.
Even if the nose cone had been higher, Gutierrez’s car would probably have still been flipped in a similar manner because of the initial contact between the wheels – the nose height had relatively little impact after that.

In the context of this article, criticizing Maldonado is fair play. He has a lot of incidents and the last one was particularly vicious. How long before he actually does some serious damage to someone? F1 is still dangerous and to do something this dangerous one needs to respect that danger, for your own sake and the sake of the others. Pastor seems oblivious to that notion.

Pastor put his nose, well the his car’s nose actually, where it shouldn’t have been, thereby causing one of his car’s wheels to interact with one of the wheels on the other and over she went.
Simple really, thanks for pointing it out…..

To be honest my intention wasn’t just to have a go at Maldonado – I was suggesting that complacency seems to have crept in given reckless actions such as his. In fairness Grosjean’s near miss on Alonso was worse but he got a ban and it seemed to change the guy. Not that it would have mattered if Fernando was killed.

The point surely is that the penalty system should be more focused on punishing drivers and teams for reckless adventures that put lives at great risk – rather than focusing equal punishment between impeding in qualifying and driving into a car causing it to flip and then refusing to accept any responsibility?

Yes F1 is safer now than even 10 years ago let alone 20 or 30 but my point was that swift action on drivers that nearly cause fatal accidents would be welcome. As I said it clearly changed Grosjean and I might hope it would make Pastor look at himself and make a similar change.

I suspect the fact that it has (thankfully) been so long since the last fatality may lead to a dangerous lack of caution on the part of some current drivers. Maldonado is the worst current example but it’s not too long since Grosjean was doing similar things.

Unfortunately MAL does not seem to be improving in this regard, whereas GRO moved on to be a very good driver.

Agree heartily with this post Joe. Not just a moment of sadness, but a chasm of time that could have gone on in Ayrton’s case for many more years of great success. Of course genius that he was, he had his flaws, but still his innate talent was many times greater than most of the grid of those days, combined in total. F1 has truly, never been the same since that day.
Rubens was very very lucky, and it is great that he was ok, had a good career and has now the time and health, to enjoy his life and family.
As to Roland, what a truly lovely guy. Not a bad bone in his body, and a decent driver too. His love of racing and desire to be an F1 driver was so great, that I often have wondered if he died with a smile on his face, as he really was doing something he loved beyond the measure most of us could understand. All very sad.
It is great that since then there hasn’t been a driver fatality in F1, although motor racing is still a dangerous sport, and some of the F1 drivers do not seem to comprehend this fact….no names no pack drill! Sad that Marshals continue to die from freak accidents, God Bless ’em, there would be no motorsport without those brave and hardy men and women.
You mentioned ” The Bear “, what a guy Denny was, truly Old School, a very good driver, a worthy World Champion, but most of all a brave and decent man.
What else can one say? Like when Jim Clark died, Ayrton going was a seismic shock, because both guys were the crème de la crème of F1, and both seemed indestructible as well as being in a different place to all the others.
In my humble view, Ayrton was the best and fastest racing driver I have ever seen, but I know from his escapades in the lower formulae, that he should have been reined in by the authorities for some of his moves, which for me, took a little of the shine off the bloke. One has to be honest, even when evaluating one’s heroes…..he will however, always remain for me as, ” Simply the Best “.

I saw Ayrton in a formula ford 2000 race at Castle Combe. On the first lap he came round four to five car lengths ahead of everyone else and by the end he was miles away and in another universe. I have no idea what his personality was really like (just like the rest of the drivers nobody seems to give a very honest opinion – perhaps for entirely understandable legal reasons) – he did however seem to be a very spiritual person and to have done a lot of good outside of the sport (as I believe Michael Schumacher has also done quietly)

Totally agreed on all points. Let us not forget how lucky Felipe Massa was when that spring hit him on the head – a luck that deserted young Henry Surtees at Brands Hatch at about the same time. A slightly different angle, perhaps even a different helmet, and the 20 year record would not have stood…

Motor racing will always have an element of danger – and so it should – but complacency is always something to be weary of. Finding the balance of course between safety and over-sanitising, is always the difficulty.

Sadly Felipe has never seemed the same in a race car since his accident, although he says it had no effect. I know that head injury after effects can last a very long time, and my suspicion is that he has been affected more than maybe he realizes himself? Anyway, he is a very decent bloke, and his manner after the 2008 Brazilian GP was just a brilliant example of a proper sportsman and gentleman. Because of that and his driving in that year, I have always rather wished that he had won the title! Although Hammy did deserve it too. Hammy should have won in 2007 really, and if Felipe had won in 08, justice would have been served!

I’ve always had a inexplicable strangely motherly soft spot for Felipe Massa. I think his bump to his head most certainly has changed him, but he’s incredibly lucky to have a close family and all around him, a reflection I think of his character, but I wonder if that doesn’t make him feel a bit odder, because in a way not enough changed but he’s going through so much internally. I’ve had three bumps to my head and thankfully none like Felipe’s but I actually have no idea how serious they were or are. This ought to be obvious in your face stuff, but my life changed after each one, and for the first two add in throwing theatrical wobblies and all change in a flurry. I’m almost certain he’s having really scary moments he cannot translate or communicate in which he feels very lost. I think in my earlier ones I alienated my life actively because I felt suddenly it did not fit. Maybe I thought the internal wobbles were the norm, I don’t know. Though each time I anchored myself in a way, something in me knew about that being necessary. I hope I’m getting that right this time but it’s dawning on me this is going to be a big thing to deal with, because definitely before I assure you I thought nothing at all was wrong with me whatsoever, and this time is radically different, I’m surviving in internal compass alone, and letting it spin freely when it wants. FM is indeed a gentleman and a sportsman but rather this minute I have the urge to hug the bloke. I’m beginning to figure out even as I type and think about bumps to the head another level of respect for him. May he be blessed with some fine races to come.

That’s the best thing I’ve heard, thanks Joe. Very much his fans here.

Had a pensive comment on how a bit more accurately I meant to explain what I was personally thinking about. Struggling to edit al all now with the new tablet machine. I think it’s me. But it’s really getting to me, because I lost my handwriting, then my regular typing, then this thing suddenly got to have fits on me and I’ve given up on at least five times what I meant to say, at the stage losing coherency of edits. If I loose just one edit I blow the whole coherency now. So until next time, all best ~ j

If anything changed Massa, I think it was Ferrari’s relegating him to lesser status when Alonzo showed up and got pushy. It seems to me that Felipe needs to be performing for more than just himself… he needs the team to need him… which Ferrari did in 2007, and he certainly rose to the challenge.

But when Alonzo passed him entering the pits and team seemed to *like* that rather than chew him out, and then when they told Felipe to move over, that seemed to make him shrink a bit, as the team didn’t act as if they thought him important anymore.

I know F1 drivers are not supposed to care what others think, but I find it kinda charming that Massa does best when he’s driving for more than just himself.

I think you are exactly right John. I have a close friend who has had 3 head injuries, but the most serious involved her hitting a tree in a motorbike accident. This one has definitely affected her life. She is mostly recovered, but it took her around 10 years for the affects to pass. It stands to reason mate, when you bash your head, like a boxer, the brain goes back and forth hitting your skull. The amount and type of damage, can vary a lot, but damage there will be.
With Felipe, it’s noticeable that he just isn’t the driver he was. And that is showing against a rookie now. I thought Felipe would easily handle Valtteri, but it doesn’t look like that at present.
I agree with RShack, that Massa is a lovely bloke and a real throw back to the past in his demeanour and ways and that is just great to me. But for the future, I think he is unlikely to be a winner again, and has zip chance for the WCD, sadly….

As I said before – and I know the bloke – I don’t see any change in Felipe mentally or physically. And he insists that he has no long term problems from the crash. I believe him. Theorizing about head injuries and using other examples is never a good idea because every head injury is different. There are patterns but that is it.

I am sure you know him better than I do! However, my friend also did not think she had problems either, and only those really close to her noticed slight issues, one would hesitate to call them even changes. However her abilities did alter, and have not gone back to how they were, nor will they ever do so. These things she eventually found out through therapy with professionals in neurology. She has a great life now, but the effects of the hit will always be there, they do not parade on the outside and she doesn’t have any placard stuck to her head saying ” hey everyone, I’m not the same as I used to be!”, but she isn’t the same as she was.
With Felipe it is evident that his driving is not as it was. It can’t be the cars because Alonso did so much better than Felipe in them. And Bottas has much less experience, yet he is giving Massa a much harder time than one might have expected at Williams.
So the most likely explanation, is that the hit that Massa took, did some internal damage to his brain, which has slowed things down, or created areas of caution, and in some way resulted in a slower, blunted Felipe. It’s a shame, but it looks that way from the outside.

Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna, rather than the other way round… That’s the convention for me and many others.

Regarding changes to circuits, I remember the foreword Prof wrote for my book Echoes of Imola, in which he said: “Many people regret, and will continue to criticise bitterly, the changes in configuration of the circuits, but in my view there is no other option save to install much despised chicanes, which destroy both the spectacle and the image. Given a retrospective choice between a Tamburello or a Senna, I do not believe any sane person would now select the wall.”

And he also had wise words on the future, with which he concluded the piece.

“Nevertheless, the unexpected will inevitably occur, despite man’s best endeavours, and the spectre of severe injury and death will continue to haunt one’s waking thoughts, and to poison one’s dreams.”

God bless them all, Roland, Ayrton and Sid. We still miss them, in different ways, but they live as long as we remember them.

On another point, there has been no word for some weeks, about the condition of Michael Schumacher, and how his recovery may be going. Have you heard anything recently Joe? He’s such a strong guy in everyway, that one hoped he would force his way out of the situation. I hope he is getting better even if it is a slow recovery, and wish all his family have good news soon.

I’ve no excuse for doing anything but admire the accomplishments in safety by F1. But. My qualifications are limited, and I’ve never seen Imola or Silverstone. However, it seems to me that, with today’s technology (SAFER barriers and the like), it would be feasible to undo the cheap-and-easy solutions that were applied to Tamburello and Woodcote, restore their unmatched thrill-value and still have acceptable safety. Again, never saw them. But I did see the comparable ess-bend past the old Montreal pits. Unforgettable. Can’t believe there’s no way to have those sights, and defeat their dangers.

Since many of us predate your involvement in F1, I think that it’s worthy to mention that the real worst weekend in racing happened 12 years before Imola ’94.
That was the weekend when my views on racing changed with the untimely death of Gilles Villeneuve.

Burned into my memory is the end over end flight of the Ferrari with the realization that things would never be the same.

Everyone will have their different view and personally, on that day that we lost Gilles I was shaken to my core and I instantly grew as a man to understand that life is a fragile thing. Motor Racing was my passion but after that day it became forever tainted with a deep foreboding which lurks in the background.

Hey matey, Gilles will always have a place in the Pantheon of Motor Racing Gods! Another truly great bloke who always spoke his mind…and another reason why I hate the corporate stranglehold on F1 and other top motorsport series!

Yes, and the authors realise that, there’s quite a bit of discussion on that page’s “Talk” page as to how they could shift the criteria to get Jim Clark in without oodles of others… so far they’ve not managed it.

I can still feel my horror at the events of 20 years ago and yet I was far removed from it all. I can’t begin to comprehend the agonies of those, like you Joe, who were there and were so close to those people and events.

I think they need something sooner than that. Right now the IndyCar event is going to 2018. Long Beach could very well extend that another three years at that point, for all anyone knows. I think Mr. Pooke would be foolish to gamble on that. Whispers have suggested San Diego, but who knows?

If you had written that column just the other week, it would’ve applied very much as well. While it’s awesome that safety standards have gone up massively, both for the cars and marshal training, there is still very much a sense of complacency among fans and probably drivers as well. There haven’t been any (driver) deaths for 20 years now, but we’ve had a whole bunch of close calls over the years, and we’ve had a whole bunch of close calls in the pit lane (with unsafe releases, loose wheels, etc.). F1/The FIA must never stop looking for safety.

“I believe that F1 people no longer treat death with the respect it deserves. No-one has been killed driving in a Grand Prix since….. ” Just as equally relevant today. And yet there will always be the freak incident. Closed cockpits were under discussion not long ago after Barrichello’s rear spring flew off, and hit Massa, now there is an extra reinforcing strip along the top of visors.

It seems it takes a bad accident to induce safety changes. And yet there is the ridiculous nose/tail situation on current cars. But until we have a nose tail accident where a driver receives a mouth-full of rear crush zone, nothing will be done. Is it not obvious to everyone that the nose and tail effective energy absorbing planes must be at the same effective dynamic, height otherwise we have old Range Rover vs Mini situation.

There will be more fatalities in F1 in the future. It is just a matter of time. But let us hope not for a long long time. F1 safety must continue to evolve, as F1 technology does. It is not just pure luck that there hasn’t been a fatality for 20 years. However, there have been some VERY close calls; Alonso at Spa being one, Mark Webber at Valencia being another. That could so easily have been a carbon copy of Marco Campos’s fatal accident in ’95. I’m sure it is only a matter of time before F1 introduces closed canopies.

Thoughtful piece and as relevant now as it was then. I remember a friend’s dad telling me about Roland on the Saturday when I was at work. That was bad enough. Then watched Ayrton’s accident on the Sunday. Still remember shouting updates to my dad in the kitchen. I went to an F3000 race at Silverstone on the bank holiday Monday, and remember the coverage in the papers. I’m still not sure I love F1 in the same way I did before those accidents. There are a few drivers in various categories who should read this article, read the obituaries from the time, and have a long, hard look at themselves.

Another black weekend was Spa, 1960. Big accidents for Stirling and Mike Taylor in practice, and the deaths of promising upcomers Chris Bristow (The Leadfoot Londoner) and Alan Stacey in the race.

Three drivers were killed in the F3 race at Caserta in 1967. Beat Fehr crashed, then ran back to warn others and was run over and killed by Giacomo ‘Geki’ Russo, who also died. In the resultant multi-car accident Giuseppe ‘Tiger’ Perdomi was also injured and subsequently died in hospital.

Thankfully, safety has improved in leaps and bounds since.

I’m not sure what I think about high/low noses. The former risk scooping the car up and over another, the latter shovelling it beneath them.

As we have suggested many times, the cockpits perhaps represent the greatest risk these days, especially in the sort of accident that claimed the inestimable Greg Moore.

Personally, I’m in favour of the enclosed cockpit, the likes of which wrought massive leaps in safety in unlimited hydroplanes. I appreciate, though, that they pose different problems in race cars, not least where cockpit evacuation from an upturned car might be concerned.

I have heard many people say that they remember where they were when they heard that JFK had been killed ; sadly , I don’t , but I will never forget the moment when I heard about jim clark’s death
for me there has never been the like , it was the manner in which he won that sets him apart from anyone since , if there hadn’t already been a gentleman jim I am sure that would have been his nickname

There’s just not much real talk about safety in the open. The word is invoked, as is the history, and I think we shy away from it. Twenty years has not healed the wounds for those who remember, because when we remember this week, it a apotheosis that claimed too much. But in that promotion to deity F1 gained as well as lost. The gains are as much part of the legacy.

Rpaco is too right on the truck v Mini worry with nose cones, and I guess it is somehow appropriate Pastor Maldonado was involved. That highlights both psychological and systemic safety. I really want that kind of incident to cause much deeper thinking, not post race argument and steward sanctions.

Maldonado could do himself a huge favour by being less defensive of himself and by being more open to how his driving could be a part of that, bringing real attention to whether the right systemic safety considerations are being discussed. I think it is at the back of his mind that the sport should afford him and other drivers safety despite a more aggressive style.

He can’t just say that, not without thinking hard how he is able to deliver his words, but it’s a valid point. If you circumscribe all the circuits to remove risk to the remotest possibility, it gets harder to blame drivers for pushing desperately. There’s a risk, highlighted by that incident and Rpaco, to assume too much about designed safety. The Volvo Effect, if you like.

Just start to increment the risk of circuit design, free up the lines through corners and limit less high speeds by design, and you put more of the skill and admonishing fear of driving back in the hands of the driver. Do something to eliminate the risk that drivers can ever think that they’re queue barging at the post office. To a extent, the new complexity do the drive trains does much for that. But that’s part of the new formula debate more broadly why there’s so much of interest.

If we’ve made sufficient advance in systemic safety, what can be reasonably given back to the drivers and fans as a challenge of both skill and bravery? Bravery in learning personal psychological ability to self control. Not disregard in arrogant pursuit. The sheer bravery that characterised our past heroes is notably less palpable in the present, mostly thankfully. Yet in nuanced seasoning, the secret sauce if you like, the dish is made.

I think Maldonado would have been a better driver in a more dangerous era. I personally just want to have more a sense that fear or private demons are keeping a driver within limits as opposed to potential sanction. The new formula does open up the possibility to rethink circuit layouts. Rpaco’s point about the nosecones has me really worried about a fast full on rear shunt. Simply because nobody can ever think of all the possibilities, my feeling is that raising the challenge and risk of the tracks would be universally useful.

For me this is not nostalgia, I can’t make a impassioned plea for turning back the clock without recoil from the sense of loss. As noted, Imola twenty years ago nonetheless had seen a good while pass with casualties greatly reduced. It is not a bad time to have a look to see if any sense of F1 since becoming reactionary and mollycoddling can be also put to rest. This is something today’s top drivers ought to be really involved in, being the direct successor generation. Talk about what can make the tracks more challenging, not about what made past greats but what would really sort out the champions today. Make the debate real and about today and what’s being done for the next season, and who will win next, and you have a tribute without the indulgence those we miss would have hated.

All true, but he’s been propelled by money that would have propelled him just as readily in times past. How easily he could have been killed, for certain, imagining him in some of the cars that rarely PQ’d and how that would have rankled his ire. But I am certain he would if he survived a few races, learned to respect more than what he merely thinks is his limit. Since he’s here, and shows signs of life as a talent, I’m just trying to say as if I were speaking to him directly, constructively. I’ve a suspicion he is capable of taking criticism. But failing that let him be a example, especially if there’s a argument for making the circuits harder. If he can tame himself I don’t see why he can’t command respect on track. He rather does need to earn some, I’m not claiming he doesn’t. There’s a way I’m sure into his mind set, and someone ought to find a way to connect that mid set to what’s going on. That’s a plenty good tin chariot he got to play with, don’t want to see it wasted. If he can get past that he can let his mind wander over how to impose on races properly.

I still shake my head at Senna’s actions in 1990, I can’t believe that someone who grew up with deaths in motor racing would do something so dangerous. Not just to the drivers, but to the marshalls (whose deaths are forgotten- the last death in F1 was Graham Beveridge in 2001) and the spectators.

Unfortunately, although proving your point about being forgotten, the last death at a public F1 event was Mark Robinson, another marshal, at last year’s Canadian Grand Prix, as Joe points out elsewhere.

Thank you Joe. This day is for remembrance, nothing else. This frenzy makes me sick… I am a great fan of Ayrton, the driver, and the man, always happy to hear or learn a bit more about him, but not today, please not today…
and thanks for sharing with us Hulme’s words of wisdom.

I dont see it as a total feeding frenzy, its obviously easier to publish stories about Roland and Ayrton now, because these date anniversaries do seem to gain more significance as time passes and the legends grow. But its important to do that I think as much to reflect educate and inform not just those of us who will always find the events of that weekend etched into our memories, but also to those who have come to the sport since either as fans or even drivers, Daniil Kyvat has only just celebrated his 20th birthday, nearly half the grid are 24 or less, Id suspect there are probably alot of people who follow F1 who find it hard to relate to the past of the sport in that era and maybe do take more things for granted in terms of safety as a result, and there have been some good articles written even if they are harder to find.

It’s easy to make light of events with perfect hindsight. The gift of perfect foresight is a heavy burden indeed.

I was in my early 20s when these events occurred, having given away karting a few years earlier after indifferent results and a large accident consuming my chassis and with it all my funds.

The time taken to receive articles in the antipodes meant that your column after brazil arrived just in time for the San Marino weekend.

Alan Jones had occasionally spoken of Elio’s death and the farce that brought it about, yet to see the very essence of F1, open wheels, open cockpit contributing so emphatically to the death of one of the sports major figures was shocking, even for a student of the era in which Jack, Jim, Denny and Bruce raced.

I never knew much about Roland before his death. I never liked Senna, i found his personality objectionable, but his status and the public nature of his violent death was shocking.

Their legacy, perhaps Roland’s more than Senna’s is the measures we have today that have kept Grand Prix racing fatality free since.

There were aspects of Senna’s personality that I found more than a little difficult to justify for him, or for me listening to what he said sometimes. Having said that Prost was no Saint either!
But in general, Senna was a decent guy as well as, well the most outstanding racing driver of his time. That’s no disrespect to the like of Mansell, Prost,Piquet etc. Or to say Berger, who in this time is probably the driver I would say that The Hulk is most like.
I think the main point is that Senna HAD A PERSONALITY! Also he was not afraid to display it, especially in regard to those like Balestre, who spent their time trying very hard to cause him troubles!
In fact in those days drivers had personalities. Prost could be outspoken, Mansell would bristle at the drop of a hat, Senna always said what he thought regardless, Piquet too, even though I bet it wound Bernie up as his boss! The others were the same. Berger, Arnoux, you name them, they had something to say, a point to make, and they just would.
It would be great if the drivers now were allowed personalities. The only ones that seem confident enough to have opinions are Alonso,Kimi,& Vettel. All the rest just mumble PR speak and whatever they are contractually allowed to say. Depressing really.

As I said in another post, he had his flaws. However so did Prost, and 1990 came after Prost took Senna out at the same race the previous year. Some folk don’t think that Prost did so deliberately, but it looked that way to me and many others.

I think Prost did it deliberately too- “you’re not coming through even if it means we crash”- but he did it in the braking zone at a 50mph chicane with no other cars around. Senna did it at a 150mph corner, without slowing, with the whole field behind.

Much as I always liked Senna, he should have been banned for what he did in 1990. Schumacher had an entire season’s points deducted in 1997 for a much less serious incident.

Red rag to a bull mate! The thing is that Ayrton should have been reined in by the MSA in the UK, the RAC at the time when he was in FF1600/FF2000/F3, as in all those categories there were some near misses that were just not on. But it seemed that no one ever pulled him over and had a word. This is why some of his more rash moves, came about in F1. It is also why the way of driving in F1 changed and standards dropped, with less respect being shown and given amongst the drivers. However, it is what it is and those ways now seem to be the norm in most forms of racing.
It is still the case, in my view, that he was the best.

Refreshing to read someone using common sense. If someone did today what Senna did in ’90, I’d want them banned from all FIA events for life. The common answer is that the speed wasn’t enough to kill Prost, but what about the tyres killing marshalls etc? Monza and Melbourne…they didn’t even intentionally ram the other cars at a 5th gear corner.

In our present days there are pilots that tried to deliberately drive another pilot into the wall at higher speeds so openly that was served a penalty and deserved a rule change o clarification…I supposed you shaked your head.

Did you guys know that Senna was looking for a way to get out of his Williams contract and was aiming to jump to Ferrari just ahead of Imola? And he was about to finish his career at Minardi with the aim to bring them away from the cheap end of the grid. Fate prevented all that.

To a degree I would expect this story to be a bit tongue in cheek, and relating to something LdM has said. However, if Ayrton had lived, there’s no saying that he might well have wanted to have a try at Ferrari before retirement. Would make sense if the most passionate driver of those times, had ended his career at the team that engenders the greatest passion! No truly great driver would not want to drive a Ferrari at least once, or so I’d think!

Spot on, Joe! I hate the aweful debates when we regularly see drivers die in other forms of motor sport. There are always those who would appreciate if F1 was less safe. When you tell them that less safety means funerals they disagree with that logical conclusion. I think it is also a European versus American cultural issue. We Europeans take a stricter view on the safety level in motor sport and in the highly published class of F1. The public in the states is probably used to a higher level of televised violence and carnage than the European viewer ship.

30th April 2003 was the day that Peter “Possum” Bourne died as the result of an accident while doing a reccy for a hill climb in his native New Zealand. While there is some debate about how the accident happened the result was tragic.

He was a favorite driver of mine, not just because of his skill but how he interacted with the fans.
He did a great deal for rallying in the Asia Pacific region and since his tragic death I’m not sure rallying has really reached the heights of what it was.. Well for met at least.

On the day it happened I was camping and hadn’t heard any news. We had to go into town for supplies (well when one is camping one needs to try to keep erm well hydrated) and I was proudly wearing my rather new Possum Bourne motorsport cap.
I kept on getting strange looks and was wondering why till I walked into the shop and saw the paper.. All was explained.

I still have the cap and wear it regularly. Some people who don’t understand may call it in some way morbid, but I rather think of it as in a small way keeping a hero’s memory alive.

Great driver Possum…also Henri Toivonen died this week in 1986?? Great talent and in the most outlandish rally cars of all time the Grp B days. Now, that was dangerous! Come to think of it, WRC is still massively more dangerous than F1 or most any other type of racing.

You look at incidents recently and think that, with a slight change in circumstances, that people could have been killed.

Schumacher crashed at Silverstone and broke both his legs. Rather than take stock of this, he seemed to think himself indestructible, hence his moves on Barrichello later in his career. Madness.

Kubica can owe his life to the HANS device after his shunt at Montreal in 2007. In the 90s, at the time of Senna, that crash would have killed him with a basal skull fracture. HANS may well have saved Raztenberger.

And then we look at Massa. Nobody did anything wrong and it almost killed him. Something as random as that could happen again, and it could kill them.

I think all of today’s drivers should take a second to think of all the great drivers who have passed away and the changes to F1 and safety improvements in general that some these drivers passing have led to. Its unfortunate that a lot of the improvements are reactionary in nature – it seems man learns the ‘hard way’ more often then not. Sportsmen in high risk sports seem to lack imagination to a certain degree in that they couldn’t do what they do if they sat around ‘thinking’ what could go wrong. Jump out of a balloon at a few hundreds thousand feet and free fall at more then mach one? What could go wrong right? Same with driving an F1 car and depending on hundreds of people all doing their jobs correctly. Was that piece of front carbon wing cured correctly in the oven? Are the brakes OK? At some point you must place those concerns way, way in the back of your mind and just trust that everyone else is as dedicated to the job as you are. We shoot far greater odds every day of death or injury from everyday hazards such as fellow expressway drivers, airline flying, disgruntled ex employees coming back to work with arms… I like to remember the racing greats whom have passed on from racing incidents such as Senna as making today’s racers safer and ensuring that they get to retire to the villa instead of being grieved.

What must also be remembered about this is that whilst nobody has died in F1 since, other drivers in other racing categories have. A driver died last year in the 24 hours of Le Mans race. Another driver from one of the lower formulas below F1 was killed when a tyre that had become disconnected from another car landed oh his head. In F1 Massa escaped death by the narrowest of margins. Whilst driving around at such high speeds and in such close proximity to each other is always going to be inherently dangerous and the risk of death never will be completely eliminated, all you can do is make it as safe as is humanly possibly. That includes the driving as well. So as other people on here have pointed out, please would someone tell Maldanado of this.

I urge everybody to watch the last few laps of the Monaco GO from 1984 on YouTube, partly re Senna catching Alain but maybe even more importantly listen to the truly brilliant commentators-Murray Walker and James Hunt.Both at their very best.

Shouldn’t shout it loudly but I have most of 1978-1995 on vcr tapes…..and although Senna could well have won had not Prost got the red flag deployed…what of Stefan Bellof? He was catching both of them quickly and had probably the most driveable car for those conditions that day. Another hugely talented guy, could well have been WCD..saw him winning in the beautiful Maurer BMW in F2. So many great drivers, so much talent lost. But, different times, thankfully it is not like that now.

“…there is such a feeding frenzy that I feel the need to keep out of it. ”
Indeed. Yours are the gutsiest words by any writer this weekend. Thanks for saying what many only will think or speak in private of.

I respect and applaud the safety advances in the last 20 years with the cars. However, my opinion is that the changes to the tracks have gone just a bit too far. Just to point out – run-off areas that allow you to get back onto the track as well as being deep.

That being said – I agree with the point that some of these safety measures are contributing to poor driving etiquette…..